The handicapping system introduced into Australian golf in 2011 works as follows:
- Take the average of the best ten of your last twenty (18-hole) rounds (minus par for the round)
- Multiply by the “bonus for excellence factor” of 0.96
- Drop all the decimal places after the 1st decimal place (after 10ths digit) – this is the 18-hole Exact handicap
- For the 18-hole Playing Handicap, the Exact handicap is rounded (with 0.5 rounding upwards)
If you haven’t played twenty 18-hole rounds (which is fourty 9-hole rounds for the McKenzie & Clark Groups), then the number of “best rounds” to be averaged is reduced from 10. Officially, for only 1 or 2 completed rounds, they don’t compute a handicap, but the McKenzie & Clark Groups will use the best 1 of your first 2 rounds (likewise best 1 from 3 to 6 completed rounds).
To get the 9-hole handicap for the McKenzie & Clark Groups, the 18-hole Exact handicap is divided by 2 and rounded (with the quirk that if the result of the division is x.5, the it is rounded towards the even number – don’t ask me, ask Microsoft!).
Of course, the official system uses the Standard Scratch Score for the course on the day, but the McKenzie & Clark Groups will get by using the par score.
For a more detailed explanation of the handicap calculation method, the full details can be downloaded from www.golfaustralia.org.au at the following link: Handicap Rules.